The final of the UK Championship takes place over two sessions of action on Sunday when the defending champion takes on The Masters champion when Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Allen do battle inside the Barbican Centre in York.
O’Sullivan will be looking for a third title of the season having landed the Champion of Champions and the Shanghai Masters while Allen will be aiming to add this crown to the International Championship one he won earlier in the campaign.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
It has been more than a week since Ronnie O’Sullivan was tested in this tournament. Last Sunday he was 4-1 down to Ken Doherty but came through to win 6-5 and he has not dropped five frames in the four matches he has played in the tournament since then. He has won his last three matches 6-1 and the one before that he came through 6-0. It remains to be seen how he will react if he is placed into a battle here, which he surely will be.
I wouldn’t say we’ve seen vintage Ronnie O’Sullivan in this tournament but the simple fact is that we have not needed to so it will be interesting to see if he can raise his game for this final should he need to. He struggled somewhat in the Champion of Champions final last month and will need to perform better here but he is a seasoned campaign at this stage of major tournaments.
Mark Allen
The Northern Ireland star Mark Allen began 2018 with a win at The Masters and he will be looking to close out his best year so far with the UK Championship title. Unlike O’Sullivan, Allen has been made to battle hard in this tournament. Some of that has been down to not being at his very best and some of it has been the much higher standard of opponent that he has come up against in comparison to O’Sullivan.
Allen spoke in his interview on BBC after his nail-biting semi-final win over Stuart Bingham on Saturday evening about how he has struggled to get his timing right which is a bit of a concern but when he has been in the balls this week he hasn’t looked too bad. He will have to score here but he is capable of that and the one thing we know about Allen is that he doesn’t lack for bottle.
Head to Head
These two have met on seven previous occasions and it is a testament to the fact that Mark Allen usually raises his game against the big players that O’Sullivan only leads those meetings 4-3. In Triple Crown events Allen leads 3-0 with two wins in The Masters and a win over O’Sullivan at The Crucible in the World Championship. Their last meeting saw Allen demolish O’Sullivan 6-1 at Alexandra Palace at the beginning of the year. In terms of frames played O’Sullivan only leads by two at 35-33 which suggests that Allen knows how to keep close to the genius that is the Rocket.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
I’m expecting an entertaining and high quality final here between two players who will be desperate to win the title. Both have the potential to play a whole lot better than they have done so far in the tournament and I expect them to do just that. I don’t see either man running away with this title because they are both class acts with tournament wins behind them this season. Mark Allen isn’t scared of O’Sullivan and I’ve got a feeling that he is going to relish the big occasion against him once again and come out on top in this final.
I do think it will be a close final though. As I said I don’t think either player is going to run away with this. This has been a tournament of close matches outside of O’Sullivan games but even he is due a right tussle. We’ve not have too many one-sided finals this season. There have been four best of 19 finals this season and three of them have gone to a deciding frame while the best of 21 ended 11-9. O’Sullivan lost his last final 9-7 and I’m expecting a 10-7 or closer in Allen’s favour here.
Tips
Back M.Allen to beat R.O’Sullivan for a 3/10 stake at 3.20 with Bet365
Back R.O’Sullivan vs M.Allen – Over 16.5 frames for a 4/10 stake at 2.05 with William Hill
Back it here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018
